Five Back Visa Gift Card. A new way to earn 5X and save money?

An interesting new gift card has appeared at some OfficeMax / Office Depot stores recently. The Five Back Visa Gift Card is loadable upon purchase up to $200. It has a $6.95 fee, but it also advertises an intriguing benefit: Get up to 5% of your purchase price added back to your card.

At first glance, this card appears to be a winner:

Use your Chase Ink or Amex SimplyCash card to earn 5X rewards

Buy the Five Back Visa Gift Card in denominations of $200 at a time to minimize the card’s fee as a % of total. This means a total fee of 3.5%.

Use the card at participating merchants in order to get 5% back.

At a high level, it looks like it’s possible to save approximately 6.5% on purchases at participating retailers by earning a combined 10% in rewards (5X from credit card, and 5% Back from the gift card) less the 3.5% fee. Of course, you can do even better when OfficeMax / Office Depot offers special deals on Visa gift cards such as this week’s $15 Instant Rebate on $300 in Visa Gift Cards at Officemax/Office Depot.

But, does it really work that way?

Participating Retailers

The Five Back Visa Gift Card website displays a “growing list” of of merchants that will add “up to” 5% back to your card with every purchase. Listed merchants include (but are not limited to):

Bass Pro Shops

Bed, Bath & Beyond

CVS

GAP

Kmart

Lowe’s

Macys

Panera

Sears

Staples

The list of participating merchants is pretty big. I expect that most people will find a few merchants on the list that they shop with regularly.

Five Percent Back, or less?

When you shop at participating merchants, the Award Sponsor (Blackhawk Network California, Inc.) will add a certain percentage (up to 5%) of your purchase amount (including sales tax) to your Card balance. Visit www.fivebackgift.com for a list of participating merchants and the money back percentage award offered by each merchant. The Award Sponsor (Blackhawk Network California, Inc.) will round earnings amounts to the nearest whole cent (with amounts below half a cent being rounded down and amounts of half a cent or more being rounded up). If you return an item on which you earned money back, the Award Sponsor (Blackhawk Network California, Inc.) reserves the right to deduct the money you earned from your Card balance.*

The strange thing here is that the answer says that you can earn “up to 5%” and that the website lists the money back percentage award offered by each merchant. But, it doesn’t actually show the exact percentage anywhere. The website simply shows participating merchants offering “up to 5% back”.

I reached out to Blackhawk Network for clarification and they told me that all of the currently displayed merchants offer 5% cash back. They wrote:

Yes, currently you get 5% back directly to the card at all of the retailers currently featured on the website. Similar to a regular Visa gift card, you can use the Five Back card at any retailer in the US that accepts Visa debit, but this card offers the added value of 5% back directly to the card when used at those participating retailers.

In summary: According to Blackhawk Network, you will get 5% back (deposited to the card’s balance) when you use the card at participating merchants. I think it is safe to assume that this will remain true unless/until the gift card website adds specific cash back rates for certain merchants.

PIN?

Yes, the card has a PIN that can be used for debit purchases. By default the PIN is the last 4 digits of the card number, but you can change the PIN online.

Whether or not PIN-based transactions are eligible for 5% back is unclear. I haven’t found any terms excluding them.

Is 6.5% combined savings real?

The savings made possible with this card sound terrific, but is it practical? Let’s walk through an example in which a person shops regularly at CVS…

Go to OfficeMax or Office Depot to buy the Five Back Visa Gift Card.

Pay total of $206.95 with Chase Ink card.

Assuming no other promotions are in effect at the time, get 5X rewards = 1035 Ultimate Rewards points

Bring card to CVS and make $200 in purchases (any overflow can be paid with another card)

$10 should be re-credited to the gift card (5% back)

Upon next visit to CVS, use remaining $10 on card

50 cents should be re-credited to the gift card (5% back)

Upon next visit to CVS, use the remaining 50 cents

3 cents should be re-credited to the gift card (5% back)

File away gift card because it’s not worth worrying about 3 cents

Aside from the hassle involved, let’s look at the net results:

$210.50 worth of stuff (maybe even gift cards) purchased from CVS

Total spend: $206.95

Rewards: 1035 Ultimate Rewards points worth $10.35 in cash or potentially much more in travel

Assuming the individual involved simply cashes in their Ultimate Rewards points at a penny per point, we end up with:

Final out of pocket cost: $206.95 – $10.35 = $196.60

Total savings: $210.50 – $196.60 = $13.90

Savings as a percent of CVS spend: $13.90 / $210.50 = 6.6%

Conclusion: Yes, assuming the 5% rebate really works as expected, it is possible to get excellent savings from purchases made at participating retailers.

Can you find it? Where is it sold?

I had hoped to test out this card in preparation for this post, but I haven’t yet spotted it in the wild. I visited two OfficeMax stores and quite a few drug stores and grocery stores, but couldn’t find the card. Still, I know it exists because at least three readers sent me photos when they found the card at Office Depot.

Blackhawk Network told me that the card is available at the following stores:

Is it worth it?

Personally, I hate dealing with gift cards if I don’t have to. Will I remember which cards are expected to receive rebates? Will I remember which ones still have value? Will I remember to bring the gift cards to participating merchants? Will I lose those gift cards?

If you’re more organized than me, though, this Five Back Visa Gift Card can be an excellent source of consistent savings (assuming it works as advertised!).

Greg is the owner, founder, and primary author of the Frequent Miler. He earns millions of points and miles each year, mostly without flying, and dedicates this blog to teaching others how to do the same.

I noted on FT yesterday that I earned 5% back at CVS doing a split tender towards a VGC. Still not worth the hassle in my estimation, though. Maybe if this was your only means of MSing.

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2 years ago

Guest

Mike B

Can you use them to buy third party gift cards at those listed merchants to trigger the 5% rebate?

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2 years ago

Guest

Phillip Dampier

Kmart may, if you have an inept cashier (most are hired and then gone within 3 months.) This year, an increasing number of stores are rejecting anything but cash for gift card purchases because of an alarming increase in fraud and the business consultant operations that have been warning major retailers that manufactured spending constitutes promotional fraud and dramatically increases their exposure to fraud. It’s alarmist, but profitable for the consultants.

Unfortunately, effective yesterday, eBay gift cards can no longer be used to buy third party gift cards, gift certificates, coupons, or any other form of virtual currency or precious metals on eBay. Here are the new terms, effective 8/22:

9. The Gift Card may not be used to pay eBay or PayPal service fees. The Gift Card also may not be used to buy eBay Gift Cards, third party gift cards, gift certificates, coupons, coins, paper money, virtual currency, or items generally considered to be “bullion” (for example, gold, silver, and other precious metals in the form of coins, bars, or ingots).

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2 years ago

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Matt

I was under the impression Office Depot doesn’t take credit cards when purchasing gift cards. Cash only to purchase.

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2 years ago

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Joe A

Not true. Been hitting OD for the deal this whole week.

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2 years ago

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Julien

It depends which cards. Reloadable are cash only.

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2 years ago

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Andy

These cards do not qualify for the OM discount. They are NOT issued by MetaBank.

i purchased this card on aug 25 and used it immediately to buy one vanilla card at CVS using split tender. Till today (aug 30th) 5% didnt post back. How long it will take to get the 5% post back to card ?

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2 years ago

Guest

Ben

Q&A answer from their website:
“When you make a purchase at a participating merchant, your earnings will be added to your Card balance within 48 hours. If your earnings have not been added to your card within 48 hours, please call 1 (844) 201-8796. Do not reach out directly to merchant partners.”
When you call in there is no option for missing cash back. I selected the option for dispute a transaction and told the CSR I was calling about missing cash back.

[…] Five Back Visa gift cards earn 5% back at select retailers, but more importantly, they function as ordinary Visa gift cards, and can be used anywhere Visa is […]

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2 years ago

Guest

DavidNJ

$10 off instantly @ Acme thru 10/20/16. Don’t know if Acme is accepting CC again, but will try this weekend. Limit one per transaction. Card fee is $4.95. Make $5.05 per transaction plus CC rewards. Wonder if you could turn around and use the 5X anywhere to buy another 5X anywhere? Perpetual $5.05.

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2 years ago

Guest

sally

does this card start subtracting a certain fee if you don’t use it by a certain time/date

[…] Fees for $200 Visa gift cards hover around 3%. With 20% back (by splitting tender across multiple Amex cards), you’ll still clear roughly a 17% discount! And, don’t forget that the Five Back Visa gift card offers the ability to earn additional rebates when using the card! See: Five Back Visa Gift Card. A new way to earn 5X and save money? […]

[…] Back Later” part is a standard feature of the card, which is pretty good by itself. See: Five Back Visa Gift Card. A new way to earn 5X and save money? The “5 Back Now” is the part that seems too good to be […]

[…] The 5 Back Visa Gift card can be purchased at Simon Mall, GiftCardMall.com, and a number of retail locations. These gift cards can be used as regular debit or credit gift cards anywhere that Visa is accepted. However, if they are used at selected merchants, 5% of the spend is automatically redeposited to the card. For example, if you spend $500 with a 5 Back Visa card at a participating merchant, $25 will be re-deposited to the card within a couple of days. I previously wrote about this card here: Five Back Visa Gift Card. A new way to earn 5X and save money? […]

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2 years ago

Guest

Tracy

Anyone know if or tried…

Get a Lowes Credit Card for 5% off for purchases then,
Use the Simon 5% Back to pay the Bill on line and get the 5% back for paying the Bill on line
Saving of 10%

After I originally commented I appear to have clicked the -Notify
me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on each time a comment is added I recieve four emails
with the same comment. Is there a means
you can remove me from that service? Many thanks!

[…] you prefer cash over points, another interesting option would be to use Five Back Visa Gift Cards to buy Neiman Marcus eGift cards (or to buy Neiman Marcus merchandise if you skip out on the double […]

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